The Mandalorian Jedi
by AetherScribe
Summary: An Exiled Mandalorian with an unknown past... Two droids whose past dates back to the Old Republic... And a destiny that they all share...
1. Chapter 1

Just a disclaimer for safety's sake: I do not it any way shape or form own Star Wars or any of the characters created by LucasArts. My story is my own, but a few of the people and places are not.

Chapter One: Exile

The perpetual twilight of Hoth's second moon was strangely comforting, the near darkness hiding many things; the scars, the shame, the banishment. Banished from ever returning to the presence of another mandalorian, only to venture into a Mandalorian camp in emergency, this was the fate of Xan Ondar. For killing a sparring partner in the Battle Circle, exile is a minor punishment.

The wasteland of the moon was nearly a mirror image of its mother planet, a frozen and desolate world with sparse life. It reflected the feelings of the mandalorian perfectly, forgotten and belittled since he was young and often disregarded when considering the clan as a whole. He knew very little of his real family, only that he was adopted into Mandalorian society through Gai Bal Manda after the invasion of his home world, which was another subject he knew little about. The only connection he had to his biological family, which was probably killed during the invasion, was a scrap of fabric bearing a crest; a flaming bird with crossed swords. He was chosen to be adopted for the crest; the mandalorians believed it belonged to a family whose bloodline was full of powerful warriors.

Now it seemed it hardly mattered what his biological family accomplished during war times, it only mattered that he was banished from the only homes he had ever known. Xan wandered the icy moon for hours, looking for a stable shelter or some kind of nourishment, keeping warm with only the armor he was allowed to keep for protection. His searched turned up few results, and in the end it seemed he would freeze to death; but as a Mandalorian at heart he would sooner kill himself with the vibroblade he was given to help him survive. Finally he noticed a large cave in the side of a large cliff. Upon scaling the sheer and frozen surface he realized that the cave was a ship, crash landed many months ago. The crew seemed to have been taken by the natural forces of the planet, but the ship's life support systems, once activated, worked as though the ship was only forgotten for a day. Not only did the life support systems work, so did the astrogation charts, hyperdrive, and medical station. Xan sat down in the pilot's chair and was surprised when the computer's automated responses activated.

The screens flickered to life and a robotic voice chimed "Dynamic-class light freighter: 34-P7JK, hyperdrive class one, Ebon Hawk. Automated command system initiated. Last known landing site: Malachor V. Last known destination: Unknown. Commands?"

"Ebon Hawk, that's impossible, this ship would be thousands of years old and in no condition to activate even the light systems," Xan looked around, amazed at what he was seeing. A ship that left the known galaxy nearly four thousand years ago, in perfect condition, waiting for someone to find it on Hoth's second moon.

A condescending robotic voice emanated from the main hallway leading to the cockpit, "Correction: This ship is approximately, 3,961 years old. Addendum: Provided my chronological systems have not been damaged in any way."

"A ship that old shouldn't be able to so much as flicker its lights, let alone support life. Then there's the fact that a droid that's nearly four thousand years old shouldn't be able to re-activate either," Xan turned around slowly to address the droid that corrected him, only to find a blaster aimed directly at his forehead. "Apparently I'm in no position to be making any assumptions about anything anymore."

"Confirmation: No, meatbag, you are in no position to do _anything_. Threat: You will do as I tell you or you will find yourself missing parts of your skull," a loud whirring issued from another source, as if agreeing with the threat.

"Well, I've made a point of never working for someone I don't know anything about. So if you want me to do anything, you should get talking."

"Introduction: I am HK-47, assassin and protocol droid, this is my astromech counterpart, T3-M4. Command: As you are our hostage, we will need something to call you by. Tell us your name, meatbag."

"I am Lieutenant Xan Ondar of the Mandalorian Army, 140th Infantry Brigade. That's all you need to know."

"Correction: You _were_ a member of the Mandalorian Army. Observation: The insignia on your armor marks you as an exile; you are less than bantha fodder to them now. Addendum: Also, the armor you wear is of non-traditional style for modern mandalorians, marking you as a member of a clan that is of great importance, thus doubling the insult of your banishment."

"For a droid, you're extremely observant. I'll remember that next time I try to lie to you. Now, what do you want me to do, defrost the gangplank?"

"Smug Response: There will not be a next time, you would be dead first. Condescending Answer: No, meatbag, you will access the memory of the ship and follow the directions that you are given from there," the droid lowered its blaster, turned, and walked away. Its shorter counterpart that resembled a small table with wheels stayed in the cockpit, its round head and single ocular sensor aimed straight at Xan's forehead.

Instead of trying to protest the situation and run the risk of getting himself killed, Xan turned to the consol and activated the memory banks hoping to find some kind of program that could get him out of the ship without getting killed. He searched through every file and every folder to no avail, the only remotely helpful program was the controls to activate the automated defense systems that would shoot him as soon as protect him. The last file he found was one labeled "Emergency", deciding that this was enough of an emergency to use whatever he found, Xan opened it.

A holographic image of a man wearing battle armor and a cape appeared on the consol of the ship and began speaking. "If you're watching this, I assume HK-47 has followed his original programming to return to the Ebon Hawk at all costs. In any case, you are here and surely need an explanation. This is, as you've seen, the fabled Ebon Hawk, returned from uncharted space and kept in shape for untold time. By now I am probably dead and forgotten, so I'll introduce myself. I am Revan, owner of this vessel; as such I have the ability to grant you ownership. Whoever you are, I am sure you'll be glad to know that with this ship comes the ownership of both of the droids," at this comment the smaller droid behind Xan began whistling and whirring in protest, "I'm sure I've just lowered myself on their favorite persons list, but by now I'm dead and they need someone to watch after them. This ship is yours now, do with it what you will but be careful, HK-47 might protest against selling or dismantling it."

As the hologram flickered out of existence Xan looked around and considered his great luck in finding a ship to get him off the icy barrens so soon after being marooned. The excitement was short lived though, because just as the hologram finished speaking blasters began firing from outside the ship. From the sound of the crumbling it seemed like a larger ship had begun firing on the cliff that the Ebon Hawk was encased in.

Xan ran for the gangplank of the ship to try and see who was firing on them only to find HK-47 blasting away with an oversized rifle at the ice that was keeping them held to the cliff. "What are you doing? You could get us all killed," Xan ran to the droid, trying to stop him to no avail.

The droid simply kept firing and turned its head slightly, "Statement: In order to leave this frozen hell we must remove the thing that is keeping us here."

"Fine, but don't blame me if you get crushed under the debris you're bringing down. While you do this I'll get the ship fired up so we don't get crushed when the whole cliff comes down on top of us."

"Request: Leave the entry ramp open, I will close it when I re-enter the ship. Do not wait for me."

Xan returned to the cockpit to begin the engine sequences and activate the repulsorlift. As soon as the ship began to lift from the bottom of its shallow grave he threw the throttle into reverse and blasted out of the hole. While turning the ship around to align it to orbit the moon for a short time he heard the clink of metal on metal. Even clicks, one after the other, carefully measured, footsteps. As HK-47 entered the cockpit he turned to the astrogation charts and typed in coordinates for a hyperspace jump.

"What are you doing? There's no telling what will happen when we make the jump. We could be torn to shreds and scattered across the galaxy! Where are you sending us anyway?"

"Answer: Master, I have plotted a course for the planet Korriban."

"What? Why Korriban? There's nothing there but a pile of rocks, and maybe some lunatics who believe they're the last of the Sith."

"Explanation: There is something on that planet that you must see if you are to be our master," without arguing the point further HK-47 turned and left the room with T3-M4 close behind.

It had been a long day, and the lack of control over his own future was beginning to weigh on Xan. He left the cockpit on autopilot and went to the dormitories on the starboard side of the ship. He stripped off the armor he was left with and stowed it in the compartment beneath the bed. He got a change of clothes from the compartment and went to the sonic bath to pulse away the weariness in his bones. He let the pulsing waves of water hit him, removing everything.

As he got out he stepped in front of the shower and took the first good look at himself since he was a child. His dark gold hair was longer than Mandalorian code allowed, something always ignored by his superiors, his body was covered in scars from numerous battles but that hardly took away from how finely toned he was for his size. He had always been one of the shortest of the soldiers, but always one of the strongest, his spirit never failed him and let him win his bouts with swiftness rather than brute strength. He looked into his ever changing eyes wondering what color they were today; they were white, with a tinge of blue around them. They would soon blend together and become fully blue again, one of his personal favorites. But staring at the minor changes happening in his eyes made Xan realize just how tired he was and he drifted to the bed and fell instantaneously into a deep sleep.

His mind wandered through dreams and visions of past events and things that couldn't ever happen. Scenes of lightning splayed across his mind and images of a woman he'd never seen made him wonder how powerful his imagination really was. "I'm lost. I'm on a path that's ended. Help me…"

He woke with a start, panicking slightly as he looked around and didn't recognize his surroundings. "Observation: Good morning, master. It's about time you woke up, I was considering putting you out of your misery," HK-47 was waiting for Xan, with a blaster.

"Putting me out of my misery? What was wrong with me?"

"Eager Recitation: You were trashing and screaming, master. It was really quite impressive watching you defeat the bunk above you," the droid was almost too excited to tell about Xan's sleep fighting.

"How long have I been out? From how much better I feel I'd say I've been out for hours."

"Confirmation: Indeed, master, you have been asleep for many hours. Approximately seventy-two hours in fact," the droid had become disinterested now that Xan had woken and was no longer trashing about, it began its measured walk out the door to the cargo hold to prepare for departing the ship.

"Asleep for three days, how is that even possible? I can't believe that, it's just not possible," Xan looked at the date on the digital calendar and suddenly he believed it was possible. "Well, at least I don't have to worry about how I'll spend my time till landing. Which reminds me, we should be dead if I've been asleep we should have crashed into the planet's surface without me to land the ship."

The whirring and chirps of the smaller droid caught Xan's attention and made him sit up to look for the astromech droid. "You, you think you landed the ship? That's crazy, no mere astromech droid can land anything larger than a one manned fighter, but since we're alive I'll have to believe you for now."

Xan put his armor back on, shining and admiring it before donning it again. He preferred a style closer to the armor of the Army of the Republic, a style that was considered taboo once the Clone Wars came to an end. The white of his armor stood out glaringly against the red of the materials holding the plates together. His armor featured the traditional T-shaped visor with a bit of personalization; the visor itself was pointed at the ends and the plasteel was tinted red. Most Mandalorians opted for a modern jetpack system, but Xan wouldn't even conform to that, his jetpack system was based on the jetpacks used in the Clone Wars by ARC Troopers. The jets had been replaced by small repulsorlifts and were designed to collapse into the armor itself, covered by a shoulder cape that was as blood red as the other parts of the armor. He put the armor on slowly, inspecting it for battle scars and cracks, and began his forced investigation of Korriban.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Korriban

The surface of Korriban was a desert riddled with ancient tombs containing the remains of Sith lords from across the millennia. The scorching heat was a severe contrast to the frozen barren of Hoth's second moon, forcing Xan to adjust his armor's climate control.

They had landed on a plateau that overlooked the ancient Sith Academy. A small mound in the center of the plateau caught Xan's eye and seemed to call to him. As he approached it he noticed that a blast door was attached to the mound. Just as he was about to touch the controls to the door it opened, it was only then that he vaguely realized that he didn't know where the droids had gone.

A long dark hallway lay before him; a hallway that looked like it hadn't been touched for thousands of years. In fact, it looked like the hallway hadn't been touched in nearly four thousand years. He activated the lights on his helmet and began walking down the hallway, but soon he didn't need the light. The systems of the hallway began to activate and the ancient lights began flickering to life. Xan continued down the hallway as though he were being pulled by some unseen force. Hardly able to control or understand his forward motion he gave in, simply allowing his body to move along the hallway, past doors with strange markings that he would normally investigate and straight to a door that was marked with the crest that had saved his life as a child.

He finally regained control of himself and reached out to touch the crest on the door. As his fingers brushed the stone surface it slid away, revealing a tomb much the same as the other tombs that had been built for the ancient Sith on the planet. But there was a difference, instead of only one sarcophagus there were two. One thought crossed Xan's mind, what self-respecting Sith Lord would let any other person occupy a space in his tomb?

A familiar voice echoed off the walls of the tomb, "So, the time has come, and you have been brought to us."

Xan recognized the voice, but was unable to place it "That voice, I've heard it before, but where? It's… the hologram, from the Hawk… Revan?"

"Indeed, it is I, Revan. But this surely only adds further questions to your repertoire," As the voice continued to speak a pair of ghostly figures slid from out of the shadows. One was the same masked, cloaked, and armored shape as the hologram on the ship. The other was nothing but a cloaked shape, its face completely hidden from sight. "We will try to educate you as to why we are here and also why you are here."

The other figure began to speak, "I am the Jedi Exile, I will not bother you with something as trivial as a name since it has been stricken from all records; Jedi, Sith, and Republic. You though are of the lost changeling people, and that is what is important in this place."

"And what exactly is this place? And who in the verse are the 'lost changeling people'? I've heard of Revan and the Jedi Exile through my Mandalorian teachers, but nothing in our records tells of you returning, only of Mandalore staying behind while you explored the unexplored." Xan looked from one ghostly figure to the other demanding some kind of explanation for why he was in such a strange place.

The figure of Revan moved closer to Xan saying, "You know your history, but you don't know your own past. You will learn much in the time you will spend here, but you first have to embrace what you are. You are of a Force sensitive race, a species once thought to be lost to the galaxy, yet here you stand an example of how the Force works in many strange ways."

Xan began retreating back through the doorway, "No, I'm not one of you. I am a Mandalorian, proud and strong. You will not turn me to your dying religion. I will not degrade my honor by sharing your fate," Xan turned and marched out of the tomb without looking back.

"You are worried, my friend. Do not be, he will return, it is his destiny," the cloaked figure began to fade.

"Yes, but will he return in time to learn all he will need for the trials to come," Revan stared after the Mandalorian, knowing that he would return.

* * * * *

As he walked back onto the ship he wondered what purpose the droids had for bringing him on such a wild gundark chase. He went straight to the cockpit and readied the ship for take-off and planned an astrogational route to the one place he knew he could disappear completely; the old refugee sector of Nar Shadaa.

The ship groaned as it lifted from the plateau it was docked on and Xan piloted it expertly out of Korriban's atmosphere and on its way to his destination. Once the course was set he activated the auto-pilot and began to turn around, only to find he was being watched by the smaller droid.

"What do you want, an oiling?" he was answered only by a questioning whirr of beeps and squeals. "Look, I'll oil you when I start seeing you do some real work on this rickety old rust-bucket. Wake me in time to land this thing and I'll look for some new hardware for you when we land," Xan stood and walked past the droid and back to the bed he had claimed.

Once again he fell swiftly and deeply to sleep, with dreams he could hardly understand. Flashing lights and blaster bolts flashed across his mind and only one thing stood out, the woman from his previous dream. She was clearer this time, but Xan could still only see vague shapes that he instinctively knew was female. Again she spoke to him, "Help me… I need your help; it is your destiny…"

This time when he woke it was to the protestant beeps and squeals of T3-M4, "What? Was I fighting in my sleep again? Where's the assassin to tell me how much fun it was watching me? Why am I talking to a droid, I couldn't understand you even if you said something back."

Xan knew it was time to land the ship so he headed back to the cockpit, once again in disbelief that he had slept for nearly two days straight. Unlike the previous landing of the ship, this time Xan was the one who brought it in for a landing.

A voice came over the transceiver, "Attention unknown vessel, this is Nar Shadaa air patrol, what is your destination?"

"I'm on my way to the refugee sector, I don't need an escort," Xan replied.

"Unknown vessel, your destination is restricted, what are your call numbers?" The voice seemed more on edge than before

"My call numbers are 34-P7JK. I don't think you'll have that registered in your data banks though."

"Commander of the unknown vessel, you are cleared for landing in the refugee sector. We will escort you to your landing pad," the voice replied with an answer that Xan hadn't expected. Nevertheless, he piloted The Hawk through the towering cities of Nar Shadaa with a pair of Z-95 Headhunters escorting him the whole way.

The air patrol escorted him to a large platform where he and his escorts landed. Before Xan could get to the entrance ramp, the ship was being boarded by four Republic soldiers. "Are you the owner of this vessel?"

"Yes, I'm the owner. Why do you seem intent on shooting me?" Xan took a few steps backward and secretly picked up his only source of self-defense, his outdated vibroblade.

"There's a warrant for your arrest on nearly every planet in the galaxy, surely you know what you've done," the captain of the detachment questioned, "fraud, smuggling, murder, manslaughter, shall I continue?"

Xan began to wonder what the droids had been doing before he found them trapped in the ice, "So, you think it's my ship that has been the source of all these problems?"

"We don't arrest people that we think did something. We arrest them when we have solid proof, which we have on you," as the captain finished his sentence he was struck down by a blaster shot that came from behind Xan.

Taking the moment of confusion as his chance to take control of the situation he attacked the remaining guards. They were easily dispatched with a few precision slices from his vibroblade. Xan was pleased to see that his years of training to kill with just a single stroke were finally getting the chance to be useful. He wiped the blood from the blade and turned around to find the little astromech droid waiting obediently with a small, but noticeably powerful, blaster sticking up from out of its head.

"So I suppose I owe you one now don't I? If I thought it was safe to take you with me I would. I guess you'll just have to wait till I get back, this isn't the last place we'll be docking and you've just become more valuable than I first thought," Xan scavenged a pair of blaster pistols from the bodies, drug them to their ships and activated the auto-pilot to send them back to where they came from, "take care of the ship while I'm gone, T3. I shouldn't be gone long, just need to pick up some things."


End file.
